Frequent illness - is it the child or the nursery

[Sunflower1985]

My ds started nursery 9 months ago at 9mo. Since then he's been ill at least every three weeks. Colds, fever, d&v, conjunctivitis, the latest was three weeks ago when he got tonsillitis, d&v and a chest infection and we ended up in hospital for a week on a drip. I had him off nursery the following week to recover, he went back for a week and now has a chest infection and d&v again. Poor thing.

The latest illnesses have coincided with him moving to the next room, but is it normal to be this ill this frequently or should they be doing more infection control? What should they be doing, if I ask?

Thank you

[insancerre]

Infection control measures would include having a colour coded cleaning system so that different colours of cloths and mops are used in different rooms to prevent cross contamination
Aprons and gloves- disposable are worn for each nappy changed
Windows should be open every day
Poorly children are sent home
Staff and children wash hands regularly
Toys are cleaned

[gourd]

Sadly its normal. The younger the child the more frequent the illness. At our private daycare nursery staff come to work sick as they don't get paid sick leave so dd and us are ill every other week for 6 months in winter. Luckily all were minor cold type viruses except for a couple of tummy bugs & dd has never had any infections or required treatment other than calpol up till now. Last year i had a virus every fortnight for7 months - 14 in total, mostly from dd. This year has been much better but dd has been ill on & off the last 3 weeks & has the complication of a burst ear drum requiring antibiotics- which unfortunately we found she was allergic to. Sorry to say this does seem normal. You are lucky if your child has no underlying health problems or complications arising from frequent viral infections. My Sister's kids are worse- there are 2 of them; one at school, one at a school nursery & so one of them or both are ill every single weekend. It is hard for the family- cant plan or do anything, most weekends are written off, you pay for tickets or swimming lessons or your own pilates classes & miss them as someone at home is ill. The more of you there are the higher the probability that someone in the house will be ill & it spreads..Roll on summer! X

[alexandrapm]

Hello,

I hope you are all doing great. I am thinking of leaving my 7 months DD at nursery a couple of afternoons a week but after reading gourd experience I am not so sure anymore...does everyone here has similar experiences? I had heard they get sick but not so often....

[purpleme12]

My baby has been poorly A LOT since starting nursery. I haven't counted but I dread to think how many days she's missed cos we still have to pay for them surely we must be due a reprieve now please??!

[LittleTalia]

My son seems to have everything after being at nursery I am sure he seems to spend more time at home than there.

[LucyLui25]

As a rule of thumb any child that starts nursery is generally ill for about the first 6 mths to a year- i think this also goes for if they go straight into school and have skipped the nursery. Settings generally have good infection control but it only takes one child/ staff member carrying a bug to touch a surface or a child for a cross contamination to have occurred. The children come into contact with ALOT of people when in a setting there is practically nothing that can be done about it- on the plus side once they have got over their 'newbie' period they rarely have time off later on in their school life. It seems to be the same with staff- when they move on to a new setting they generally always get sick at some point within the first year, even if they had excellent sick record before.